VARANASI: The Central Pollution Control Board put Varanasi at AQI 138 in its bulletin for 4 pm IST on Thursday, November 5, 2026, with all four monitoring stations contributing. This is a new daily reading after the November 4 figure of 134, as reported earlier on dalimss.news. Air quality remains in the Moderate category, relevant to residents planning outdoor work, exercise and festival outings.
The city's weather bulletin also records no rain at Rajghat or Varanasi airport over its reporting period. Residents in these areas should check pollution readings separately from the clear sky forecast: the weather outlook describes sky conditions, while the pollution bulletin measures a different part of the outdoor environment.
For people with lung conditions, asthma or heart disease, CPCB's category guidance associates Moderate air quality with possible breathing discomfort. Before a prolonged outdoor activity, residents in these groups should check the latest official reading and consider their own symptoms and medical advice. The figure reported here is dated Thursday afternoon, rather than a live measurement for Friday morning.
The daily pollution bulletin describes an average over the preceding 24 hours. Its 4 pm reference therefore identifies the reporting point for that summary. It is an observation product, rather than a forecast of the air residents will encounter over the coming weekend.
What changed in the latest bulletin
The November 5 official bulletin identifies PM10 as Varanasi's prominent pollutant. Its station participation column reads four out of four. The November 4 bulletin listed three out of four stations, with the same prominent pollutant and the same Moderate classification.
The numerical change is four index points. Because station participation also changed, these city figures should be read with that qualification. They do not establish that every neighbourhood experienced an identical increase. CPCB explains that its city summaries use an average when multiple monitoring locations are available and that air quality can vary across those locations.
That distinction matters when choosing a place or time for an outing. A city average does not supply a separate reading for a particular ghat, residential lane or school ground. The bulletin directs readers to the board's monitoring information for individual locations. It also acknowledges the agencies that generate the underlying observations.
- Bulletin reference: November 5, 2026, at 4 pm IST.
- Varanasi AQI: 138, Moderate.
- Prominent pollutant: PM10.
- Monitoring participation: four of four stations.
- Previous daily bulletin: 134, with three of four stations.
How to read the number
CPCB's explanation of the National Air Quality Index describes a system that converts measurements into a number, category and colour. It uses pollutant subindices, with the highest subindex determining the overall AQI. The eight pollutants covered by the framework are PM10, PM2.5, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, ammonia and lead.
The index value of 138 is consequently not a PM10 concentration expressed in micrograms per cubic metre. PM10's appearance as the prominent pollutant identifies its role in the bulletin; the city row does not provide a full concentration table for each substance at each station. Readers should avoid treating the index number as a direct laboratory measurement of one pollutant.
The official categories place Good at 0 to 50, Satisfactory at 51 to 100 and Moderate at 101 to 200. Poor starts at 201, followed by Very Poor at 301 and Severe at 401. Thursday's reading stays within the same band as Wednesday's. A change within a band still changes the reported index, but it does not create a new category warning.
What residents should do
Use the dated bulletin for the daily comparison and the official monitoring portal for a newer observation before leaving home. Check both the timestamp and the location attached to a reading. A different update time or station can describe a different observation, so figures seen on separate displays should not automatically be treated as interchangeable.
For outdoor plans, the IMD city forecast dated November 5 lists a mainly clear first day followed by clear skies. Its five displayed forecast days carry maximum temperatures of 31, 30, 30, 30 and 29 degrees Celsius, with minimum temperatures of 17 degrees throughout. The realised maximum and minimum are 31.0 and 17.3 degrees, respectively.
Those observations update the earlier dry weather outlook. They also give a separate weather reference alongside the earlier Satisfactory air quality reading. For the next decision about outdoor activity, use the next available official update rather than extending Thursday's pollution number into an unmeasured period.
